


When StrexCorp Won

by LilithReisender (Lilith_Queen_Of_Demons)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Desert Bluffs, Diego Strex - Freeform, Diego is Desert Bluffs Carlos, Lots of Angst, M/M, OCs - Freeform, Post-Strex Kevin, Pre-Strex Kevin, Smiling God
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-05-16 06:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14806152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith_Queen_Of_Demons/pseuds/LilithReisender
Summary: I was young when the strange Smiling Men came to my home town of Desert Bluffs. This is the story of how we lost.





	1. A Time Before

I was young when the smiling men came to my home town of Desert Bluffs. At the time, that was all I knew them as: smiling men. They brought yellow helicopters in first, making all of us children afraid to go go outside and play on the bluffs that made our town so beautiful. My people were wary of these strangers, but none believed that they possessed any dangers to our little town. Even my Uncle Kevin thought they were harmless, though he despised them. But soon, more smiling men came, under the name of StrexCorp. The first thing they did was buy our stores and farms. They played advertisements on the radio, and bought out the schools. Soon, everything was StrexCorp. Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself, after all, you do not even know my name. I am Jeanine Free, and this is how we lost.


	2. Yellow Helicopters

The first time I remember the yellow helicopters was when I was eleven. I was still in my wheelchair back then, and my Uncle Kevin had just spent the day with me. We were on our way home from the bluffs when the first one appeared. A low-flying yellow helicopter with a large symbol on each side, an orange outlined circle with a smaller, dark yellow C inside. My uncle, usually so calm about unexplained phenomena, as you have to be in order to be a proper journalist, seemed nervous, even scared.  
“Uncle Kevin?” I asked, looking over my shoulder to see him behind my wheelchair.  
“Yes Jeanine,”  
“Do you know who owns that yellow helicopter? I know the green ones are secret police, the black ones are world government, and nobody is sure about the bird ones. But the yellow one is new.”  
“I… don’t know actually. There hasn’t been any news about these… yellow helicopters.” He smiled and winked at me, and I instantly felt comforted. He always had that effect on people. “I’m sure we’ll be fine Jeanine, these things happen every once in a while. Now, I have to get you back home before my show starts.” With that, he grabbed the handles on the back of my chair and started running, pushing me so fast my hair was flying out behind me. I laughed giddily as he ran all the way back to my house, where his car was already parked out front. 

He was out of breath and was doubled over, but he was laughing and still had his happy smile. He let go of the handles and I pushed myself up the ramp that led to my door. I knocked three times before my mom and dad answered. Mom came out first, going and giving Uncle Kevin a hug.  
“Thanks for spending the day with her Kevin,” mom said, pulling out of the hug.  
“No problem Sue, always a pleasure spending time with my favorite niece.” He waved at me and went to go to his car, but my dad stopped him, running outside.  
“Wait Kevin!” he pushed past my mom and grabbed Uncle Kevin’s arm. “Can you pick up Nina from her appointment on Wednesday? I have a job thing and…” he trailed off as uncle Kevin scowled. He had never been a huge fan of my dad, well, technically my step-dad, and he did not like my nickname of Nina.  
“Sure, no problem.” he said, nodding. “I’ll have her home at the usual time. Now, I have to get to the station or I’ll be late. See you next week Jeanine!” he called out to me as he stepped into his car and drove off towards the station where, in fifteen minutes, he would broadcast everything important that happened today. Mom and dad came back inside the house, and I followed them, pushing my wheelchair through the narrow entryway into the living room. Dad went to the kitchen to make dinner, and mom had her laptop open on the couch. I took a peek at the screen: medical bills.

I was born with a birth defect called spina bifida myelomeningocele, which means that due to random genetics and a few other unimportant things, my spine and the membranes surrounding it did not fuse together quite right. I have it better than most with my condition though, at least I can still walk a little bit, some can’t walk at all. But even though I am pretty good, it’s still really expensive to make sure I’m healthy. Dad helps a lot in that regard, his job gives him a pretty steady and high income that can allow us to pay for treatment for me. Before my mom met my dad, we lived with uncle Kevin and he helped us and took care of us. But when mom got married, she made him stop so that he could live his own life. I still saw him all the time though. It made things a bit easier knowing that he would always be there for me.  
“How was your day Nina?” dad called out from the kitchen.  
“Pretty good. Uncle Kevin bought me ice cream! Then he took me to play on the bluffs overlooking the canyon. And then he ran me all the way home. It was super fun!”  
“That’s awesome Nina! I’m glad you had a good day.” mom answered this time. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour,”  
“Thanks Mom. I’m going to listen to Uncle Kevin’s show in my room, is that okay?”  
“Sure hon, I’ll call you when food is almost done,”  
I wheeled myself into my room and closed the door behind me. I backed up and parked my chair next to the door and slowly stood up. My knees shook as I put weight on them, but I gathered myself and managed to walk the four steps it takes to get from my door to my bed, and sit down on the large blue blanket that covered my mattress. The radio on my nightstand suddenly turned on, startling me slightly. 

“The grass is always greener on the other side. So hop the fence and ask your neighbor how he got his grass so green. Welcome, to Desert Bluffs Community Radio.” uncle Kevin’s little introduction music came on, and I took the minute to situate myself on the mattress. “Hello Desert Bluffs! I hope you all have had a wonderful day. I know I did. I spent my day with my niece Jeanine. We went out for ice cream, I took her to the bluffs overlooking the canyon, oh it was just amazing. Now, onto the local news. Many people have probably seen the new yellow helicopters in the sky. These belong to a new company in town called, StrexCorp. They recently bought the local grocery store and the rights to fly in Desert Bluffs airspace, they also have a group of employees who have just moved here for the company. These new members of our town can be identified by their large smiles and tendency to mumble ‘praise the smiling god’ when something good happens. And, excuse me for a minute, but I have something to say about our new neighbors. I am not exactly happy with a large corporation like StrexCorp buying our local businesses, but they seem to just want to be a part of our prospering little town. And now, onto traffic…” Uncle Kevin continued talking, but my mind wandered.  
I thought about the apparently safe yellow helicopters, and remembered the smiling men who had come with them. Now that I was thinking about them, I remembered seeing them as uncle Kevin and I walked downtown. I thought about school tomorrow, and Girl Scouts with my friend Laquisha after that. And I thought about my days with Uncle Kevin. I always loved our days together, and Wednesday would be so much fun, I could not wait. I zoned back in to reality as I heard uncle Kevin say,  
“Good night, Desert Bluffs. Good night!” Just afterwards, mom stepped into my room,  
“Dinner’s ready Jeanine,” I hoisted myself up and walked back to my wheelchair, going to join my family for dinner.  
That was one of the last normal days I had.


	3. Scientists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about the delay with posting this chapter, I've had it written for a while but there has been so much stuff going on with my family I haven't had time to post it. I will try to get the next chapter up soon.

A few weeks later, I was coming home from school with my friends Laquisha and Lucas when we saw a group of smiling men putting up the StrexCorp logo on two more buildings. They had bought Early Bird Music co. and an empty building next to Jose’s Tacos.

“That’s new,” commented Lucas, pointing at the people around the building.

“I thought they just wanted to be a part of Desert Bluffs, like your Uncle Kevin said. But this is just weird.” Laquisha added. “Any ideas Jeanine? I mean, you seem to have the most access to government allowed information.”

“I haven’t seen Uncle Kevin in about two weeks. I have no idea what’s going on,”

“What time does his show start today? Maybe we can ask him to look into it,” Lucas interrupted.

“Today’s Thursday so… he should be on at around five. It might be three now, according to the sun,” I answered, stopping at a crosswalk. “Should we go to the station?” My friends nodded. “Okay, I can probably get us in.”

“Yeah, we should probably go to the station,” Laquisha said. “Remember what they say in Girl Scouts: _Be prepared, observe, and report._ It can’t hurt us too much to ask right?” I shrugged in response. “All right then, to the station we go.”

 

A few minutes later we were at the door of the station. It looked like an ordinary cement building, the only things making it noticeable were the large DBCR on the side and the radio tower behind the building. I wheeled myself up to the metal door and pressed the large COM button on the side. For a minute there was just a loud static from the speaker underneath the button, but soon a voice came through the speaker.

“Hello?”

“Hi Uncle Kevin! It’s me Jeanine, plus Lucas and Laquisha. We’ve been seeing some weird things around town and wanted to report them to you and see if you know anything.”

“Hello Jeanine, come on in, but you will have to wait a few minutes, I have a… guest.” There was a loud click as the door unlocked and slowly opened. Laquisha had to push my chair inside so that I could fit through the doorway without scraping my hands. She struggled with the door frame for a moment before managing to get me through.

The room that was the lobby for the radio station was really quite small. It had two metal folding chairs lined up against the empty beige wall. On the wall opposite the door, there was a long hall that seemed far too large for the tiny building, and every once in a while I swear you could see the shadows moving. There were also no windows, only bright LED lights from the ceiling. Yet somehow it was very comfortable and friendly, even with the occasional snarl from down the hall. Laquisha and Lucas sat down on the two folding chairs and I pulled up next to them. For a few minutes we sat in a comfortable silence, until we heard two faint voices from down the hall.

“I have no say over the matter, you will have to take your request to station management,” I heard Uncle Kevin’s voice say.

“Well that is disappointing, I truly love your show. Nevertheless I hope to get to know you better in the future Mr. Free. I enjoyed our conversation today.” Came a new voice, this one deep and oaky.

“I cannot say I feel the same Mr. Stre-”

“Diego,” the other man interrupted

“Diego,” uncle Kevin continued, “after what you have proposed to me today. And while I am truly flattered that you thought it important enough to see me personally, I am not at all sorry to say that I have no authority in that department.”

The two men walked out of the hall. The first one was uncle Kevin, the second man was undeniably the most handsome man I had ever seen. He had caramel skin, a strong, square jawline, beautiful brown eyes, jet black hair that reflected the fluorescent light. He had on a black suit with a yellow tie that had the StrexCorp logo on it. He was smiling at uncle Kevin and, unlike the rest of the smiling men that seemed to come with StrexCorp, this smile seemed genuine.

“Well Diego, have a nice day!” Uncle Kevin said as he all but shoved the man out the door. It automatically slammed behind him and Uncle Kevin sighed.

“Hi Jeanine,” he said, walking over to me and bending down to give me a hug. “Hello, you two must be Lucas and Laquisha,” he shook each of their hands. “Sorry about the wait, now what can I do for you today?”

“Well, Uncle Kevin, lately we’ve been seeing a lot more of those weird smiling men, and of StrexCorp. Do you know anything about that?”

“Uhg, I _hate_ Strexcorp!” he groaned, the way he said that shocked me, Uncle Kevin was usually very happy, and he rarely got upset like this. “They come into Desert Bluffs under the guide of wanting to become a part of the town, then they start buying our local businesses and bringing in their men. All they want is money and power.”

“If they want money and power, why did they buy the empty building next to Jose’s Tacos?” Lucas said, interrupting uncle Kevin’s rant.

“They did _what_ now?”

“Yeah, there were already men gathered around the building,” Laquisha added.

“Shit,” uncle Kevin whispered.

“Hey Uncle Kevin?” I said, deciding to try and change the topic, “Who was that man who just left?”

“That was Diego Strex, scientist and co-owner of StrexCorp, he said he wasn’t completely in charge, and that his family owns and runs the business. He mentioned that he was building a lab in the town, but I didn’t think they already had one ready. That empty building you mentioned is going to be a new StrexCorp laboratory. Diego came over here today saying he wanted to meet with me, and then he offered to _buy_ the radio station,”

“What!” I interrupted,

“Yeah, he said he loved my show and wanted to buy the station to help, and I quote, ‘keep us running.’ Well, obviously I have no control over ownership of the building and know almost nothing about that sort of business, so I told him to talk to station management.”

“We heard that part,” Laquisha added

“That is what I know about StrexCorp,” Uncle Kevin continued, his normally happy voice filled with loathing.

“But are they _dangerous_?” I asked,

“Dangerous? Hardly. Annoying, corrupt and power hungry? Yes, but I doubt that they would ever do anything to harm us. After all, they are outsiders and don’t know how our town works. We can keep them from getting too powerful.” He paused for a second, checking his watch. “Oh dear, it appears that I have to get back to my booth, my show is on in a few minutes. But it was lovely talking to all of you.”

“Bye Uncle Kevin.”

“Good bye Jeanine, Laquisha, and Lucas.” With that he turned around and walked back down the mysteriously long hallway.

I looked over at Laquisha, who shrugged. “I guess that’s that,”

“It seems like there is nothing we can do about it,” added Lucas.

We left the station and went to go back to our own respective homes. On our way, we passed the new lab. The smiling men were all gone, but we could see inside the lab windows. There were men and women in bloodstained lab coats running around and setting up experiments. Laquisha shuddered, she hated blood. There was still one man outside the lab though, he was wearing a black suit and looked vaguely familiar to me. Then he turned around and I recognized him, Diego Strex. He looked different from earlier, without his smile he seemed harsher, more intimidating. I prayed he wouldn’t notice us, but he beckoned us to him with one hand.

“You guys are the children from the radio station right? I remember seeing you as I left.” he said, looking each of us over, his eyes catching on my chair for a minute. “Now, which one of you is Jeanine?” I raised my hand before responding,

“I am, sir,” he looked at me again, seeming confused, before composing himself and reaching his hand out to me, I shook it.

“Lovely to meet you Jeanine. You’re Kevin’s niece correct?” I nodded. “That’s good to know. Now, what were you children doing at the station today?”

“Just some basic reporting that we have to do whenever something out of place happens.” Laquisha said quickly, before I could say anything else.

“Interesting… well, good work being responsible citizens, children. But Jeanine,” he turned towards me again, “did Kevin say anything else? About StrexCorp, about me, about anything?”

“He said he thought that StrexCorp’s involvement in town was getting a little extensive, and that he was worried about our local businesses. But that was all.” I replied. Diego seemed to think about it for a moment before speaking again.

“Thank you, that’s nice to know. Now, you kids should probably go on home, we can’t have anyone worrying about missing children now can we.” With that, he turned around again, a silent dismissal. Lucas went to speak to him again, but Laquisha pulled him back, her eyes wide. Lucas made a face of confusion and Laquisha pointed silently at Diego’s side, where a gun holster was now exposed. Lucas’s eyes widened as well, and we all turned around and continued walking, going away from the armed man.

We stayed silent until it seemed that no one could hear us, except the secret police, of course. I looked at Laquisha and saw that she was shaking and that her fists were clenched.

“Are you okay?” I asked her,

“He-he had a _gun,_ ” Laquisha replied, her voice wavering, “he had an actual gun.”

“Yes he did, but we are safe, right? Nothing happened.” Lucas comforted her, taking both of her shaking hands in his own. She took a deep breath in, and exhaled slowly.

“You’re right, thank you Lucas.” by that point we had reached Lucas’s house,

“Bye guys!” he called out to us as he walked up his driveway, “See you tomorrow!” That left Laquisha and I together on the sidewalk. Her house was next, and she hugged me before going inside. I was left alone for the block it took to get to my house. It should have been scary for me, being alone like this, but I felt safe. Plus, I knew where the secret police were hidden. I wheeled myself up my driveway and into my house.

“ Hi Mom! Hi Dad!” I yelled,

“Where were you?” my mom asked, running to me and sounding frantic. “I didn’t know where you were , and with all these strange people in town, I was afraid something had happened to you.”

“I’m fine Mom, I went to visit Uncle Kevin with Lucas and Laquisha. Nothing happened.” Mom took a breath,

“I’m glad you are home safe.”

“Me too, hey, is Uncle Kevin’s show on?”

“Yeah, it’s playing in the kitchen.”

“Thanks Mom!” I went into the kitchen and heard uncle Kevin’s voice through the radio.

“This had been traffic. Now listeners, my niece came in here talking about StrexCorp. I know you’ve all seen how much they’ve been in our town lately, but I want to tell you that we have nothing to worry about. We locals are always distrustful of outsiders, but I am one-hundred percent certain that we have absolutely nothing to worry about.” his voice changed, it got higher and sounded happier, but not actually him happy, a fake kind of happy. I was growing concerned, what he had said on the radio wasn’t matching up with what he had said not even an hour ago. “In other news, I was visited today by Diego Strex himself! I realize that many of you have not seen him before, so I will describe him to you. He has caramel-brown skin, large dark eyes, teeth like a military cemetary, and perfect jet black hair. He was very kind and intelligent, but what he has done to our town, and what he wants to continue to do with it made our conversation difficult. He offered to buy the radio station from our current station management, which I could not abide. Our station management may be terrifying, but they are good and kind… beings? No one is sure. Anyways, let’s have a look at the weather.” The room was suddenly filled with a soft, slow, melody and a voice singing about unrequited love, the usual weather.

I was still quite confused. What he said on the radio did not match what he said to me earlier today. He now _trusts_ StrexCorp? What happened? The music kept playing as I made a mental comparison of everything he’s said today. First he said he hated StrexCorp, now he says they are fine. Second he said to be wary of them, now he says that they are nothing to worry about. He talked about Diego differently as well, first he seemed to hate Diego, or at least be distrustful of him. And now he was praising him? But his stance on the radio station was the same. The music ended and uncle Kevin’s voice chirped through the radio.

“Well, the weather was certainly lovely. Now I only have a few minutes left, but I would like to say some-Oh! Listeners, it appears we have a guest, Mr. Strex, how nice to see you.”

“Thank you Kevin, it’s lovely to see you again, and I told you to call me Diego. I am here for both business and non-business reasons. Business first though, productivity above all else, as we say at StrexCorp. I would like to personally discuss the people’s concerns about my company.

I know all of you are hesitant to welcome outsiders, and I am sorry for frightening you all. We only want to help Desert Bluffs become all that it could be. We have recently bought some farms and will be working to provide better food for all of you, and just today we built a lab where my team of scientists and I will be creating new serums and drugs that will help the Desert Bluffs Medical Community.

“Well, thank you for helping out our little town. Now, you said you had something else to tell us?”

“Yes, Kevin. I was wondering if you would like to grab dinner with me Friday evening. I enjoyed our conversation today immensely, even if we did disagree on that _one matter_.”

“Yes, I would love to have dinner with you!” uncle Kevin interrupted. “But before we continue making plans, Listeners,” he said, seeming to address the radio once again, “we are out of time, so I must wish you a good night, Desert Bluffs, good night!” The room became silent, and I was left wondering: _What had happened after I left? And what was Diego planning?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment if there are any typos or other grammatical errors in these chapters. Thank you for kudos and bookmarks, they really help me keep writing this. And again, thank you to my AMAZING betas: SailorMiverva and my "Kevin."


	4. School Intervention

I got to school early the next morning. Dad dropped me off and I went out to the playground behind the school while I waited for my classes to start. The playground was not exactly designed for a person in a wheelchair, so I went and parked my chair underneath a nearby tree that had been deemed safe by the PTA for children to exist under. As I sat there, I noticed that something was different about the playground. It looked, off. I moved away from the tree and pushed myself towards the slide, where it looked the most weird. As I approached, I noticed what was off: the slide was now painted a darker shade of yellow, and on the side, was a yellow triangle sticker with a large S in the middle of it, and text below that said _StrexCorp Synernists Inc._ I backed away from the slide. Why would they want the elementary school?

“Jeanine!” I heard a voice shout from far in the distance. It was Laquisha, with Lucas following behind her. They ran up to me and Laquisha hugged me tightly. “Did you hear Kevin’s show last night?” she asked me as she pulled away.

“Yeah, it was weird wasn’t it? I was so confused. I thought he hated Mr. Strex, and then he called him handsome, and made plans to go have dinner with him.”

“That, and what he said about StrexCorp,” Lucas added, “I mean, what does he want us to do? He said they were bad, and now they are nothing? I don’t understand…” he trailed off.

“Neither do I Lucas. It makes no sense.” I agreed with him, but before I could say anything, a loud distorted version of a duck call cut through the air; the signal that it was time to go inside for school. We all went inside reluctantly, Lucas and Laquisha were in the grade above me so we wouldn’t see each other until lunch.

“See you later!” Lucas called as I went into my classroom.

My teacher was sitting at her desk when I wheeled myself into the classroom. There was another woman next to her, texting on a phone. She had on black pants and a matching black jacket, a white button up shirt underneath and a yellow tie. She had her auburn hair tied up in a tight ponytail, and her eyes were almost black. I had no doubt in my mind that she was from StrexCorp.

Within a few minutes everyone had made their way to the classroom, and my teacher stood up, we said the pledge of allegiance, which took a few minutes, and then she sat back down at her desk and said,

“Well children, as you have probably noticed, we have a special guest today. It is my pleasure to introduce to you, Miss Lauren.” she gestured at the woman, who was smiling oddly wide. “Now, give Miss Lauren your complete attention while she talks about herself, and why she is here today.”

“Hello everyone! As your teacher already said, my name is Miss Lauren. I work for a company called StrexCorp, who now owns Desert Bluffs Public Schools. I am the vice-president of the company, with Mister Diego Strex as my boss. Our goal with this school is to improve your education by using a new curriculum, accompanied by brand new, Strex-approved textbooks. Our goal here is to make sure that you children grow up to be good, productive, adults and employees. Now, this change will be hard for some kids to adjust to, and that’s why we have some fun activities for you today. If you work hard, you will get to play outside in the new playground that we are building behind the school. If you don’t work hard, then you don’t get to play. Now, any questions?” she looked around the room, nobody raised their hand. “Good, now to start your day, we are going to do a fun search of the school for any garbage, the person who finds the most trash gets to go to recess early. You have exactly fifteen minutes starting… now!” She hit a button on her phone and suddenly everybody shot up from their desks and out the door, everyone wanted to go to recess first, but I had to wait until everybody left so that I could get my wheelchair through the door without being at risk of being hurt. As I left the classroom, I heard Miss Lauren exhale sharply. “Vice-president of a multi-million dollar company, and I’m stuck babysitting my boss’ boyfriend’s niece.” she muttered under her breath.

“Did you say something Miss Lauren?” I asked her as I was waiting to get out the door.

“No, you must have heard someone else. Now hurry, you want to be the most productive don’t you?” she said instantly, I left the room and went into the hallway. Something about her was weird, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. She seemed normal enough, but something was simply, off. Oh well, I figured that if I couldn’t do anything for now, I might as well do what they tell me until I figure out what to do about them.

Within a few minutes I had picked up lots of trash and put it on my lap to carry it around. It was messy, and not fun, but I got the second most amount of trash in my class, and so I got to go to lunch early. The cafeteria had been completely redecorated. There was a new lunch line that was filled with all sorts of different foods. There was chicken (that had the poison taken out of it), there was invisible pizza (imported from Night Vale), the delicious invisible corn and carrots, and some weird oranges that seemed to disappear and reappear at various different times and places. I decided to stay away from those. Because I got the second most amount of trash, I went second in line and got slightly less food than Jack, who changes forms every few minutes and managed to pick up trash from places non-shapeshifters couldn’t reach. I grabbed a simple salad with chicken on it and looked at the nearly empty cafeteria. Lucas was sitting alone at one of the tables, so I decided to pull my chair up next to him.

“Hey Lucas,”

“Hey Nina,”

“Where’s Laquisha?” I asked, looking around for her.

“She didn’t make enough progress on her report of the growth of one of the plants in the classroom, so she is still inside writing until they let her out.” He picked at his food with his plastic fork. “Why are they _here_?” he whispered to me.

“I honestly don’t know. I don’t understand what is going on. Why is no one stopping them, they are getting too big.”

“Well it’s not like we can do anything about it.” he muttered, poking at his food again.

“Maybe we can,” I looked around the room to make sure nobody was in paying attention to us. “Look, not many people are happy about StrexCorp. People think that they are too big of a company for our little town. The adults might not be able to do anything about anything, but we can. We know this town better than Strex, we can use that to our advantage, all we have to do is get other kids to join us. At the very least, we can get them out of our school.”

“I don’t know Jeanine,”

“Just listen. We a can do this. Our country was founded on a rebellion from the lizard people, we can rebel against a single company.”

“But what if they catch us? What will the do to us, you’ve seen those smiling men, they have no life life left in them.”

“They are already trying to do that to us! Think about it: the most productive gets done first? The best work gets to eat the best food? They are already making us into them, and only we can stop it!” I was whisper-yelling now, trying to stay quiet enough that nobody would notice us, but loud enough to make my point. “We have to do something, we can’t just sit here and wait for our problems to be solved for us, because at this rate they won’t get solved at all.”

“Okay,” Lucas exhaled, “okay you’re right. But how do we get other people on board?” Lucas looked around the slowly-filling cafeteria. I thought about it for a moment.

“Watch for the people who come in last, they will be the most hateful towards the company, they will be our base, and then we can get their friends on board.” Lucas nodded, seeming to understand the plan.

I looked around the cafeteria again, and saw Laquisha rounding the corner. She looked exhausted, and was that, blood dripping from her nose? Laquisha hates blood, why had she not wiped it off? She went straight for the lunch line, without even bothering to look at us. I watched as she walked through the line as if she were being controlled by someone else. She got to the end of the line and stood there, her eyes glazed over until I called out her name,

“Laquisha! Over here!” this seemed to wake her up, and she jerked back her head. She walked slowly over here the look on her face was one of exhaustion and fear. “Laquisha, what happened? Are you okay?” I took the lunch tray out of her arms and put it on the table, then grabbed one of her hands and Lucas passed me a napkin. “Laquisha, you’re bleeding a bit, let me get that for you.” She didn’t move as I gently wiped the blood running down her face.

“Laquisha, what did they do to you?” Lucas asked, grabbing Laquisha’s other hand. She opened her mouth, and then closed it and shook her head. She looked like she was almost in tears. She sat down next to me and I kept wiping at the blood on her face. It wasn’t just coming from her nose; there was blood coming from a cut on her forehead, and now that she was sitting down, I could see cuts on her arms as well.

“Lucas, go and get me more napkins and some water.” I ordered. He shot up from his seat and ran across the cafeteria as people stared at him. He came back a minute later with a fistful of crumpled napkins and a plastic water bottle. I thanked him and took both from his hands. I opened the water bottle and poured some onto the napkins and began to dab at the deeper cuts along her arms. The whole time Laquisha said nothing; only moving when I told her to. I cleaned the wounds as best as I could and turned back to Lucas.

“We need to get her to the nurse’s office, you-”

“No.” Laquisha said, and we both jumped.

“Laquisha, we need to get you to someplace with actual medical supplies,” Lucas insisted.

“Not allowed to go to the office. I wasn’t productive enough in my science reports to earn assisted healing benefits.”

“What a load of crap!” Lucas exclaimed, and I jumped. Lucas hardly ever raised his voice or used any sort of bad language, let alone both at the same time. He must have been truly angry, and Laquisha seemed to realize this because she simply shrugged.

“You can try, but they won’t let me in.” she said sadly. Lucas helped her up and he wrapped one arm around her shoulder, making sure she wouldn’t fall. I positioned myself of her other side and together we slowly made our way towards the nurse’s office.

 

The office was down a long hallway towards the back of the building and it took a while to get there under normal circumstances, but when you are dealing with an injured girl who can barely walk unsupported, it takes a lot longer. Laquisha staggered, even with Lucas’s help, and her gait was uneven. When we got to the office, Lucas had Laquisha use the handles of my wheelchair to hold herself up while he opened the door. He then grabbed Laquisha again and helped her inside. The room was large and dark, making it hard to see anything.

“Dr. Serpiente? We have someone here who needs help, can you please come look at her?” Lucas called out, and was answered with only silence.

“We have an injured person who needs help!” I yelled.

“What are you three doing in here?” a voice from behind us asked. I startled and turned my chair around to see a female figure leering over us. She clapped her hands and the lights in the office turned on to reveal that the mysterious female figure was Miss Lauren.

“Laquisha got hurt,” I explained, “we came to see if the nurse could take care of her.” Miss Lauren bent down and looked at Laquisha, taking in the various gashes on her head and arms.

“Mrs. Serpiente no longer works here, but I can help Laquisha here, I have medical training.” She smiled, an unnatural, artificial smile, and in that moment I realized what was off about her. Her eyes were completely black. No iris, no white, just pure black. She pulled Laquisha to a bed that had made itself visible in the light and sat her down, then she went to the medical cabinets and pulled out some bandages, disinfecting spray, and medical tape. Within a few minutes she had taken care of everything and Laquisha was ready to leave.

“Thank you very much Miss Lauren!” I said to her as we were leaving.

“You’re welcome Jeanine, now go back to class with your friends.”

I wheeled myself back to Laquisha and Lucas, who had gone ahead of me, when a thought stopped me dead in my tracks: _How did she know my name?_ I thought back through the day to try and remember if I had told her earlier, but I remembered nothing. The only thing that came to mind was her earlier comment: _boss’ boyfriend’s niece._ Was she talking about Diego and uncle Kevin? Was she sent to watch me? Laquisha stumbled and I put the thoughts out of my head for now. She was more important, for the moment. Lucas guided her back to their class and I went back to mine for the end of day activity.

Miss Lauren was back in the room, smiling with that unnatural smile and black eyes, and she announced that I was going to be dismissed from class early today because I was one of the “most productive” students in my class. I was free to leave in fifteen minutes, but for now, I had to listen to a story that Miss Lauren was going to tell the class.

“Have any of you heard of the Smiling God?” she asked us, looking around for any hands. No one moved. “Well, I am going to tell you a story about him.”

“A long time ago, there was a place called the _mudwomb._ It was a place that held all the gods and everything that would ever happen in the universe. In this mudwomb, there was a god, one who smiled before anyone knew what smiling was. When the universe started, the gods all went out to explore. They all took their domains, but the Smiling God wandered alone, looking for a place to call his home. He wandered from place to place, and got permission from each of the gods to explore the domains they had claimed for themselves.

One day, he was wandering the domain of the Destroyer goddess, when he found a mysterious portal. He decided to go through it, and found himself in another world, similar to that of the Destroyer’s but different, unchanging. He liked this desert world that he had found, and he decided to make it his own. He made a single mountain in the middle that everyone could see, no matter how far away from it they thought they were, and on that mountain was a tower with a red blinking light. The Smiling God liked that light a lot, and he used it to announce himself. But one day, the Smiling God realized that there was no one to worship him, nothing for him to consume. And he became angry, because the other gods had that and he did not. He only had wandering armies that he built to fight each other.

He went back to the portal and found the Destroyer’s world changed. It was not a place of destruction, but of life, and the Smiling God wanted some of that life. He found a town, far out in the desert, and decided to make it his favorite town, like the Destroyer had hers. He blessed the town, on the promise that they would worship and feed him, he would help them. But the town became ungrateful and unwilling to feed the great god, only one family continued to help him, and he thanked them greatly. He gave them wealth and power, under a promise that the family would find him a new town, a _better_ town. And so the family set out, looking for a new place for the Smiling God. And eventually, they found one, it took them decades to find an appropriate town, but they did find one. But it was too late, in his absence from his domain, he had grown weak, and he had to retreat and go back to his domain.

When he left, the portal closed itself behind him, and the Smiling God was trapped in the desert world. But the family he had blessed would not give up. They decided to use his new town to research a way to bring back the Smiling God in all his glory. And they will not stop until he has returned.” Miss Lauren finished off the story with another one of those fake smiles, “Jeanine, thank you for all your hard work today, you may leave now.”

I left the classroom as quickly as I could, and saw a few other kids leaving theirs as well. Lucas was one of them. He ran over to me and hugged me tightly.

“Laquisha is still in there,” he whispered, “she has to stay until the end of the day.”

“We should probably wait for her, plus nobody is at my house right now, so I couldn’t go home anyways.” I said.

“So we wait,” Lucas agreed. And that was that. We wandered the building until the end of the day bell rang and then went to Laquisha’s classroom. She came out in the same condition that I had last seen her, so not very good, but they hadn’t done anything to her so that was better.

Our parents picked us up at the from of the building. Laquisha’s mom came first, and she went to go take Laquisha to the doctor’s office. Lucas’s dad and mine came at about the same time, so we left at the same time. Dad tried to talk to me about my day, and I told him it was fine. I didn’t want to say anything about StrexCorp just yet, dad always hated conspiracy theories.

Mom had just gotten home from work when we got home and was working on starting dinner while dad went and started doing the dishes and cleaning. I went to my room. After today, I just needed to be alone. Miss Lauren’s story was running through my head, and all I could think about was the Smiling God. Were we the town she was talking about? No, surely we could not be. That would mean that things were going to get very bad, very quickly.

I decided to turn on the radio, uncle Kevin’s show wasn’t on for another hour, but they would be playing something that would distract me for a moment. I heard bird noises, and voices describing exactly what the bird looked like and how it was moving. I closed my eyes and listened for a minute, when I heard uncle Kevin’s voice on the radio; and he said something that made my spine shiver.

_“Bird sounds and descriptions was brought to you by StrexCorp Synernists Inc. StrexCorp. Believe in a Smiling God.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead everyone! Sorry about the long delay in posting, but I hope this chapter made up for it. I am going to try to update more and get some real progress in the story. Thank you for all the Kudos and bookmarks, it really keeps me going.


	5. Split

I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, not quite asleep, but not quite awake. I couldn’t get what had happened yesterday out of my head. Miss Lauren tells us this story of a “smiling god” and then that same day Uncle Kevin’s voice is playing ads that mention him. There is no way that was simply a coincidence. But what did it all mean? I could not begin to understand what was going on. All too soon it was morning and my mom was shaking me awake, telling me it was time to go to school. So I got up and got ready. It took me about forty five minutes, then dad took me to school. It was just like every other morning.

But school was different that day. We did all the same things, but it was like there was always someone else in the room watching us and judging us. Lucas was at school but Laquisha was not, and I was really worried about her, she rarely missed school because she loved books and learning too much. But the day went by fast, quite literally, as we were only there for what felt like a few hours before end of day bell rang for us to get home. Dad picked me up and I went home. It was really just like any other day up until that point, but I was too confused and worried about everything to just stay home like I usually would. So I decided to go visit Uncle Kevin. I knew it would be weird for me to show up again to the station so soon, but I was so worried about him that I figured I would just say I missed him. Mom and dad said I could go visit him as long as I was home before seven thirty. I checked the time, four fifty five, perfect. I had a long time and Uncle Kevin’s show didn’t start until six tonight.

I pushed my chair to the station where Uncle Kevin would undoubtedly be getting ready for his show. As I made my way to the station I saw more of the changes that the town had gone through. Everywhere I looked there was traces of StrexCorp. There were more smiling men now. All with those obviously fake faces, and they were too polite as to the point of being suspicious just for that. But more of my own townspeople were beginning to look like them. They all had the same blank faces of what should have been happiness, but was just… nothing. They looked empty, and it was terrifying. The weirdest part was how nobody else in town seemed concerned. All the other people were just, walking by, not even noticing the changes, or maybe they did notice and just didn’t say anything, I’m not sure which would have been worse. 

Soon I reached the station, luckily enough, there was no change in the outside appearance, so it seemed that StrexCorp had not yet taken a complete hold on it. The large DBCR on the side of the building was unchanged, and this fact relieved me immensely. I’m not sure I could have handled it if the radio station was bought. If the letters were bright yellow. I pushed my chair up to the door and pressed the COM button. This time it did not go through to Uncle Kevin at all, the door just opened. I thought that was slightly strange, but I assumed the door must have remembered me, after all, it had only been a few days since my last visit.

I pushed through the narrow door, my hand scraping against the frame slightly. As soon as I entered the room, I gasped. It was so very, very, almost horrifyingly different. The beige walls now had a dried not-quite-red, not-quite-brown substance all over it, and the floor was sticky. Whatever was on the floor got all over the wheels of my chair and on my hands. I was terrified by the sudden change in the station. All I could do was wonder what had happened in the few days since I had last been here. I waited in the newly-redecorated lobby for a while before I remembered that I hadn’t told Uncle Kevin that I was coming. I looked down the dark hallway that led to the broadcasting booth, where it was certain that Uncle Kevin would be. If it was the only way to get to him, I would go down that menacing hallway, but I certainly didn’t like it. 

I gathered up all my courage, and began to push myself into the dark hall. It was even longer once you got inside. The dark seemed to stretch on forever and ever, and the deeper I went in the louder the growls and snarls became. After what felt like hours, but could only have been a few minutes, I reached a room on the left hand side that simply read:  _ Broadcasting Station 1.  _ I pushed the door open, and covered my mouth with my hand at what I saw.

The walls were covered in,  _ was that blood?  _ It was dripping slowly, leaving red trails as it fell, it seemed to be coming from various lumpy things that were stuck to the ceiling, I couldn’t make it out from where I stood, but it was long and lumpy, and was dangling haphazardly, as if the person who put it up wanted it to fall. I looked at the desk, which was in the middle of the back wall in the room. Part of my view was blocked by someone who I assumed was Uncle Kevin, but what I could see of the desk was just as frightening as the rest of the room. I saw chunks of what looked like meat and organs scattered randomly. I guess Uncle Kevin heard my gasp because he turned around, saw me, and smiled. But it wasn’t Uncle Kevin’s smile, it was the smile of those stupid StrexCorp men. His clothes, usually so organized and professional, were covered in bloodstains. The only thing that seemed normal about him were his eyes, they were not black like some of StrexCorp’s other employees, but were still their own bright hazel. 

“Hi Jeanine, how are you today? I wasn’t expecting you.”

“What-what happened to your station?” my voice quivered, “it doesn’t look the same as when I was last here..” Uncle Kevin looked around the room and nodded.

“Oh yes, I decided that it was time to do some redecorating. I like this decor  _ so  _ much better. It really brings some personality to the room don’t you think?” His voice was higher than usual, the same tone as I had heard when he played that weird ad. I could only stare at him.  _ This is not redecorating, this is the scene of a mass murder _ . I thought, but did not say. This man did not look like my uncle anymore. 

“Uncle Kevin, are you okay? You see… different.”

“Is it that noticeable already? Huh, she said it would have side effects, but I thought it would be more subtle.”

“What?”

“Sorry, let me explain. That Strex woman, Lauren, she asked me to help her to help Diego with a science experiment. She gave me a bottle of experimental pills that she said would ‘help me work harder, better, and have more fun while working. She also said there might be some side effects, like mood and stuff, but I thought it would be subtle. Is it really that obvious?”

I nodded, widening my eyes.  _ Miss Lauren had been here?  _ For a  _ science  _ experiment? To help Diego? What on earth was going on here? I took a deep breath, I needed to be able to think things through. Mood changes as a side effect, is it possible that they changed his thoughts too?

A loud knock came from behind me, and I pushed myself as hard as I could to one side of the room, hiding behind some radio equipment and boxes. I turned around just in time to see Diego Strex hovering in the doorway.

“Come on in Diego”

“Hello Kevin,” Diego didn’t seem to notice me as he strode into the room, stopping just short of Uncle Kevin. Uncle Kevin smiled, blushing as he did so; and then to my surprise, Diego wrapped his arms around Uncle Kevin’s waist and kissed him. Full, on the lips kissed him. Uncle Kevin threw his arms around Diego’s neck and pulled away, but leaving their foreheads pressing together. 

“Are you ready for this evening?” Diego asked, pulling away just slightly, but left his arms around Uncle Kevin’s waist.

“Absolutely, as soon as I’m done with my show, I’m going to meet you outside the station. Then we can go to wherever you were planning on going for dinner tonight.” Uncle Kevin smiled again, but this time it seemed real, like it was actually my uncle’s smile. His voice was back to normal too, I wondered what had made it change so suddenly. 

“I have to go now, it’s almost time for your show to start.” Diego disentangled himself from Uncle Kevin’s arms. Uncle Kevin frowned ever so slightly, and Diego laughed. He pulled Uncle Kevin close to him again and purred,

“See you tonight, my poison voiced darling.” Diego kissed him again and strode out of the room. Uncle Kevin blushed and turned around, a slight grin on his face. I rolled out from my hiding spot and uncle Kevin jumped.

“Jeanine! Hi. I’m so sorry, I forgot you were there.” He looked nervous, and he was blushing a little bit. His voice was different again, back to the fake imitation of my uncle. 

“Why was Diego here? What are you doing? Are you two… you know?” I asked,

“Yes, Diego and I are dating,”

“But how? Don’t you hate StrexCorp? How can you be with that man, knowing what and who he is?”

“Remember how a few days ago he came to my station? Well, we were talking for a bit and then things just happened, we went out to dinner, nothing fancy, just a meal at the diner. We really hit it off. I like talking to him, and he likes talking to me. Then, Diego asked me on an actual date, for tonight.”

“But you were kissing him,”

“Yes, that ended up happening as well.” 

“I don’t understand Uncle Kevin, he is not a good man. He is literally doing an experiment on you.”

“I don’t fully understand myself, but I guess it’s one of those things, you know? Hate the sin love the sinner.” 

“Uncle Kevin?” I said, pushing my chair fully out of my corner and towards him. “Can you come here? I need to tell you something important.”

“Of course Jeanine, you can tell me anything.” He walked over to me and crouched down so that we were eye level. “What do you need to-” I put my hand up and slapped him across the face as hard as I could. Which wasn’t very hard, but it seemed to shock him enough that he fell over.

“Snap out of it!” I yelled. “This isn’t you Uncle Kevin! This is Strex messing with your head! We still need you!” I was almost sobbing now, tears were running down my face. Uncle Kevin put a hand to the cheek I had slapped, and he looked at me in shock. He seemed to change, his face getting sifter as he opened his mouth just slightly, as if he was going to say something but forgot. He turned his head away, and when he faced me again, I knew that I had my uncle back.

“Uncle Kevin?” I asked, still slightly uncertain. He hugged me very tightly.

“Thank you Jeanine, thank you!” He whispered in my ear.

“Are you… are you okay?”

“I’m back, it’s me again, not that-that  _ thing _ . I’m myself again.” I hugged him back, but he pulled away. “It’s almost time for my show, but thank you so much, would you like to stay for the broadcast?”

“I would love to, I still have to talk to you about some things,” I replied, going back to the corner of the room. “I will just stay here,you won’t even notice me.” I smirked as Uncle Kevin put on his broadcasting headphones and turned on his microphone. 

“Love is a battle that nobody has ever won. Welcome, to Desert Bluffs Community Radio.” He clicked a button on his soundboard that I assumed was his music, the booth was silent for a minute, and then Uncle Kevin continued speaking. “There are so many things to report on today, so I will do my best to give them all an equal amount of time. First of all, I have been informed that there will be a company party in Purpose Valley Park hosted by StrexCorp in three weeks to celebrate the completion of the new official StrexCorp company building. The party will last from nine am, to whenever they let people leave. All StrexCorp employees are required to go, and since that is a lot of the population at this point, I figured it was okay to say on air. 

Next, I should probably talk about the appearance of the odd beings who have appeared to Grandma Josephine. These beings call themselves  _ Demons _ but the city council has assured me that they do not exist. Remember, demons do not exist and are certainly not here to complete some type of infernal mission. Acnologing that these demons exist is now  _ illegal _ , and will be punished by the secret police.

But thirdly, it has been brought up to me that many of you listeners are confused by what you have been hearing on the radio lately and I feel that I should clarify, after all, we don’t want people walking around confused now do we? You have all probably heard my voice playing advertisements for StrexCorp, and then saying things against them while on air. StrexCorp is now an official sponsor of Desert Bluffs Community Radio. So, despite my feelings about the company, I am required by station management to read these advertisements. 

But finally, I don’t hate everything about Strex. Some parts are completely fine; I actually have a date with the president of StrexCorp’s science division, Diego tonight. I am quite excited for this evening.” Uncle Kevin smiled at this, seeming to get lost in his broadcast. “But now, for traffic,” He hit another button on the soundboard and the station was silent once again, I guess today’s traffic had been pre-recorded. 

“Uncle Kevin?” I asked, he took his headphones off.

“Yea Jeanine,”

“So you are actually dating Diego?”

“Yes, everything I said about him is absolutely true, and everything you unfortunately saw, was completely real.”

“I don’t understand,” I sighed

“I don’t fully understand myself, but the heart wants what it wants, and mine is pulling me towards Diego,” he put his headphones back on and turned his head back to the microphone.

“This was, Traffic. Now listeners, more on some of your questions, I’ve just been alerted that some of you are curious about the development of StrexCorp in out town. They are building a new company building right here in our little town, that will be a place where Strex can communicate with it’s other bases. And yes, it is true that they have recently tried again to buy the station, but the current management will not allow that.    And now, a word from our sponsors:

“Do you ever feel empty? Like there is a growing unhappiness in your souls? Do you ever frown for no reason? Do you ever think that you aren't  _ productive  _ enough? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, there is a way out of this feeling? StrexCorp is the answer.” Uncle Kevin checked his watch and sighed,

“Well listeners, I was going to continue the story about the not at all demonic visitors who we have in our town today, but look at the time, I really should check out the  [ weather ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayWB8fN3gQ) .” He took off his headphones and stretched upwards as the song filled the room. He closed his eyes and exhaled, seeming to take a moment of silence before he opened his eyes again and looked at me.

“Hey Jeanine,” was all he said. Neither of us said anything else as the weather played. Although I had plenty of questions running through my mind, I could not make myself say anything. The minutes passed quickly as the weather played on, and Uncle Kevin put his headphones back on and picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. 

“Well, Desert Bluffs, that was an extremely informative weather report, so go outside this week and enjoy everything. In other words, dear listeners, today I will end the show with a thought: enjoy everything. In these trying and confusing times, try to enjoy the smallest things in life. Notice the delicate beauty in a spiderweb, and the fragile struggle of life in the flies. Notice the dust rise from behind a person running. Observe the sandstorm on the horizon. And finally, see the beauty in random love. May you all see beauty in this world, while it still lasts. Good night Desert Bluffs, good night!” 

Uncle Kevin turned off his soundboard and mic, and took off his headphones. He stood up and began to organize his desk.

“Hey Jeanine, you should probably get going. Your mom is going to want you back by now. I will be a few minutes still, and I’m expecting someone soon.” Oh yeah, he has a date tonight.

“Yeah sure Uncle Kevin, I’ll go ahead. Thank you for letting me stay for the broadcast.” I turned my wheelchair around. The dried goop from the floor annoyed my hands as I pushed the wheels. I stopped as I reached the doorway. “Hey Uncle Kevin?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget about what happened today, okay? Please try and remember.” He turned around to me and looked me dead in the eyes.

“I won’t Jeanine, I promise.” With that, I left the booth and made the trek down the impossibly long hallway.

 

I reached the lobby much quicker than I had gotten to the booth, but I decided not to question it. As I left the dark hallway and reached the light of the mutilated room, the door opened from the outside, and a now familiar figure entered the station.

“Oh, hello Jeanine. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Said Diego Strex. He was once again wearing a black suit and yellow tie, but his hair was neater than before, a feat I had thought was impossible; and even though we weren’t very close together, I could vaguely smell the almost sweet smelling cologne on him. “I’m here to see your uncle-”

“I know,” I interrupted, “he’s in his booth getting ready. If you actually want to see him tonight I would recommend going in soon or he will get so sucked into his work that he’ll lose track of of time and leave you waiting for a long time.”

“I’m assuming you’re speaking from experience?” Diego laughed. Not a full body laugh, but a genuine one. I nodded silently, plastering on a smile so he wouldn’t get suspicious of me. It was true though, Uncle Kevin had been late for dinner with us many times because he was too sucked into his work. “I can respect that,” Diego said after he was done laughing,“It’s nice to know he cares so much about his job. And I have spent many a late night at various labs because I was working on one experiment or another.” He laughed again, “Thanks for telling me Jeanine, I will go back there right now.” He smiled at me before walking down the hallway I had just left. 

I was shocked. He had actually been nice to me. And the smile that he gave me looked real. I just can't figure him out. I glanced at the crooked clock on the wall- shoot! It was seven fifteen, if I was late my mom would become frantic and start worrying about me. It wouldn’t have been the first time. I pushed myself out of the station and made my way back home, where I was surely in for another long and sleepless night.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank my amazing Betas: SaliorMinerva, and my "Kevin." You guys are the absolute best and I'm not sure what I would do without you!


End file.
